


Fragile Dreams

by Neverever



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Dreams, Early in Canon, M/M, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Tony has one dream -- that the Avengers become a great crime-fighting team. He has other dreams too.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57
Collections: Lights on Park Ave





	Fragile Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lights on Park Ave Round 17 -- Dreams.

Tony had a fragile dream.

At heart, all he wanted was a simple thing -- to form a superhero team to fight the rising numbers of supervillains and alien invasions. Being taken seriously by world governments was proving to be harder. 

Ant-Man’s current request didn’t quite qualify as the seriousness Tony craved.

“Money for an Avengers submarine, Ant-Man?” Tony asked. 

“The team could use more scientific equipment,” Ant-Man said with complete and utter sincerity of a scientist thinking only of his research, not the cost or appearance of said research.

Tony looked down again at the proposal laid out in spreadsheets on his laptop. He’d already spent the morning fixing all the mechanical errors in the submitted blueprints and shipped it off to an R&D team to make a mock-up and run tests. He hadn’t signed up with the Avengers exactly to be the project manager for the team. But that’s how he lived now.

“Um, could you send me a few more examples of how the Avengers are going to use this?” 

“Sure.” Ant-Man got up from his seat. He pointed at the framed poster on the wall. “Is this new?”

“Bought it at Sotheby’s two months ago,” Tony replied. “Just got it framed.”

“Odd choice -- WWII propaganda poster --”

“Of Captain America. Mint condition -- rare image. They pulled the entire print run before it was sent. Army brass thought it might give away Captain America’s identity since the artist included Camp Lehigh in the background.”

Tony almost repeated the auction copy word for word. It wasn’t the priciest price of Cap memorabilia he owned. But he had a great fondness for this poster with Cap standing in front of soldiers getting ready to be shipped over seas with the big red letters of Uncle Sam wants you emblazoned at the bottom.

A stray thought crossed Tony’s mind -- would Captain America have agreed to fund a Howling Commandos-branded submarine?

“Who would have known that?” Ant-Man asked.

“That’s what the art historian said,” Tony said. “Captain America’s identity was and is still classified. That poster hints a possible connection --”

“No one know Captain America trivia like you do, Stark.”

“Send me those justifications,” Tony reminded him.

“Sure, of course, will do.”

Tony made a private bet with himself that Ant-Man would not send him the justifications but instead a database of ant colony data collected by one Hank Pym. Hank had done it before and he’d do it again. 

~~~~~

Tony’s other dreams had taken a weird turn after his ill-fated trip to Afghanistan. When he managed to slip into a deep enough sleep, he dreamt of armor schematics, dancing hippos and flying through the stars. He walked through endless empty hallways, taught algebra in the nude to all his exes, rummaged through boxes and boxes of hardware, never finding what he was looking for.

He dreamt of walking along a beach in Cape Cod his family stayed at before he was shipped off to boarding school. Along at first until he was suddenly joined by a tall man in a leather jacket. “Nice day,” the man said.

It was a beautiful day, the sun bright, little white caps on the gently rolling waves in the calm ocean. Tony could feel the wet sand through his toes. “Yeah,” he replied.

“Good day to go swimming,” the man said. Tony was now wearing red and gold swim trunks. 

Tony turned to look at the man but somehow he couldn’t see the man’s face and then he was swimming in the ocean, hearing his mother yelling his name to come in for dinner. His swim trunks were fraying at the hems, red thread floating in the blue water.

~~~~~

Hank, no, Ant-Man got his submarine and he had plans for it. Iron Man nodded along during the team-meeting, the faceplate hiding his yawns and drooping eyelids.

He’d been up late the night before negotiating for Avengers to have permissions to pursue supervillains into different countries. It would be a disaster if they were chasing the Black Knight and had to turn back when they hit Canadian airspace.

Tony Stark, patron of the Avengers, was winning. But they were one fight-gone-wrong away from being banned everywhere. After this Avengers meeting, he had to race across Central Park to meet Reed Richards and one Nick Fury at a building he’d never been in before. The meeting had to be over in time for Tony to clean up for his date. Revival of Guys and Dolls he thought. 

“Sounds like a swell musical,” the man in the leather jacket said. 

They were walking on a endless sidewalk in a nameless city and Tony knew the man had sky blue eyes and hair as yellow as the sun more than saw it.

“It was fine. My mom liked the movie,” Tony replied. He craned his head around, but he still couldn’t figure out where they were. All the buildings were brick and short with empty windows and closed doors. He couldn’t shake off the red string pressed into the back of his hand. 

“Movie?”

Tony turned to look at the man. But he was seeing out of the corner of his eye and the man slipped away every time he tried to look. “What do you look like?” he blurted out.

“Tony, hey, wake up,” Ashley said. “The show’s going to start again.”

He’d fallen asleep during intermission

~~~~~

Now there was Hulk and Loki and Tony’s recurring headache as they tried to corral both.

“This is madness, Loki!” Thor yelled as he threw Mjolnir.

Tony would be getting a call from someone in the mayor’s office as soon as the fight was over, he knew that. Or worse from the mysterious Fury at some organization called SHIELD. The Avengers were good, Tony saw that. Good strengths, talents, just need some finesse.

His heart soared as Thor took Loki down. They would do good in the world, he knew that they would. 

Hulk slammed his foot down, shattering a warehouse. Then he jumped and sprung into the air, shortly followed by Loki, still cradling his head.

Tony’s day went immediately into the shitter. How were the Avengers going to be taken seriously now?

~~~~~

A diner in New York, snow falling outside.

Tony couldn’t tell when or where he was -- he could have been in any time with the chrome trim on the counter and the tables and the booths covered in dull red vinyl. It was only them and the constantly refilling coffee pot and mugs.

The blond man with a beautiful smile and in a brown leather jacker sat across from Tony. A bright red thread twisting through his fingers, looping across the table, entwined in Tony’s own hands.

“You’ll get him next time,” the man said cheerfully.

Tony felt warmth flood through him. He didn’t know the man’s name at all but he had known him forever. If Tony pulled on the thread connecting them, he would pull the man’s hand towards him.

The thread was stronger than 500 pound steel cable. He could hang the world from the thread and it would not break.

“Maybe. Ant-man wants to take the sub out for a spin tomorrow. We should be hunting down the Hulk or Loki or both.”

The man put his arm over the back of the booth and looked out at the falling snow. “I miss this -- snow in New York.”

It wasn’t winter in New York now or maybe it was snowing. Tony couldn’t tell or remember. If he focussed too much, the details slipped away. Right now, he needed the warmth from the man he only met in his dreams and he didn’t want him to slip away too.

“Only if it’s not slush in the morning.”

“I won’t take it for granted when I get home.” The man smiled grimly. “I have one more mission to run -- babysit this experimental plane. Then I might get redeployed to New York.”

“I’d prefer that over the submarine trip through New York harbor tomorrow.”

The man chuckled low and his laugh sent a wave of heated feeling through Tony.

Tony could feel the fading of the diner, the feeling of rolling up paper around him, a desperate sense of immediate loss. “What’s your name?” he asked.

The blond man disappeared as Tony’s alarm assaulted his ears. Tony hit the mattress with his fist as loss and disappointed filtered through his over-active brain. 

~~~~~

Tony drank coffee through a straw as he watched Ant-man dock the sub.

“This is going to be great!” Wasp said as she buzzed around. “Iron Man, you need to thank Tony Stark for this.”

“Will do.”

Tony still didn’t know why the Avengers needed their own 4 person sub. And he had serious doubts that they would discover why on their mission in the harbor today.

“I do not know what we are seeking here, Man of Iron,” Thor said. He crushed his Starbucks cup in his hand and tossed it into the trash.

“Science, Thor. We’re doing science.”

“Indeed.” Thor’s simple statement echoed all of Tony’s doubts.

As Tony lowered himself down the hatch into the sub, he thought he saw a stray red thread sticking out of the wrist joint of the armor. Clearly he needed more sleep if he was having walking hallucinations.

“Ready to go?” Ant-man said cheerfully.

“Take ‘er out to sea,” Tony said. “Let’s see what’s out there.”


End file.
